Pruitt has confidence in himself and his staff. He does not care about the public perception of him as much as he cares about creating the correct culture and implemting his systems. Wins will bring back the public perception in a heartbeat.
Pruitt knows we will loose games to ranked teams. He is playing the players that he sees in those positions in the future.
He threw the WVA game for experience, and it was the right call. Are we running the ball to much, not if your learning how to block. Are we going for it on 4th to much, not if your sending the message, we play to win. BTW, going for two in the Ga game was the correct call.
Helton may not be a bad OC, he may be getting reps for the line that are desperately needed. We all want to beat GA but really what were the chances. Get ready for more of the same. If it works perhaps we win later in the year.
Helton is keeping the O vanilla until we learn to execute vanilla. The oline needs vanilla most, but so do our backs, TE, and receivers. Helton is probably frustrated he is forced to keep it simple.
We don’t have the receivers or line to beat the best teams deep. We can beat the Sc, Ky, Vandy etc. deep. We will be working the deep passing soon in prep.
I see improvement in our defense but we still have a long way to go. The pass rush has improved. Tackling and toughness need to improve. We still have some busted assignments. We are getting more players to the ball. We are now trying to get turnovers. We should have had 4 In the last game. The D will be ready for the last 4 games of the season.
LBs are better than last year but tackling has to improve. Still missing tackles one on one and in space. Hurting our tackles for loss. Reads are improving but could be better.
The oline has. Improved but not by enough and progress has been slow. We are not strong enough, but the mental errors are our real problem. The only fix is reps, reps, reps, until the light comes on. You can’t coach in experience much. It is time we begin to see significant improvement in the line but it will be hard to see aginst the next few teams we play. If we notice any improvement consider it significant.
Our QB is way better than last year. He is getting to much pressure to be able to read the D and get through the progression. Good news is he is adjusting to the situation, not panicking and is not holding the ball like he was. The negative QB plays were reduced in the GA game.
Looks like a pecking order has been established for the RBs. This means more reps for the top 3. We have backs with potential but lack of experience causes busts in pass protection. Are backs could be picking better places to run. I see fewer busts and better ball security coming.
For now we have to make a living in the short passing game. Receivers have to catch it. Calloway and Jennings are doing fine, the others need work. We have a TE that can catch but can’t block. Separation will remain an issues until we have success deep.
Pruitt may not be the guy taking us to the promised land, but he is a good coach. Better than the last few. His staff is solid and it shows, just not as much as we want. We had to get worse to get better. I also have confidence in Helton for the time being. Let’s see what he does after we learn vanilla.
Don’t get excited by the alignment and fumbles. Those get fixed easily.
The kicking game is not that important at this point. Working on it eats practice time better spent elsewhere for now. I hate the new kickoff rules.
If I am Pruitt I don’t wast much time prepping for the next few games and work on vanilla (us). No scheme or tricks are going to beat the next few teams.